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Archives for May 2017

The President’s Budget Request was submitted to Congress on May 23. I met with the leadership of the Office of Science last week to understand the details of the budget request and the next steps in the process. This week the leaders of the DOE program offices will engage in more detailed discussions about research programs with Associate Lab Directors and Division Directors both at Berkeley Lab and at the other national laboratories. More>

The Diversity and Inclusion Office (DIO) partners with Lab leaders and employees to promote diversity and inclusion (D&I) activities throughout the year. DIO is requesting employee feedback on these activities in FY 2017, as well as thoughts regarding support for D&I within the Lab and their divisions. The anonymous survey will be open between June 1 and 16. More>

Ordering standard furniture has a six-to-eight-week lead time from day of order to delivery. Those using eBuy for ready-to-use furniture must place orders by August 18. Those who need custom furniture requiring design assistance must place orders by August 4. Contact Keith Scholz at Staples to schedule an appointment. Place orders as soon as possible to ensure Sept. 29 delivery.

Traffic on S-Road, just south of Building 76 and connecting McMillan Road and Glaser Road, will be reduced to one lane starting June 1 for waterline repairs. Flaggers will direct vehicles and pedestrians. Contact Dan Galvez (x6213) with questions. Go here to view a map detailing the various Facilities projects and impacts around the Lab.

Making fuel from sunlight, increasing the resiliency of urban waterfronts, and developing low-cost batteries for energy storage are among the efforts by UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab researchers to create solutions for energy efficiency, sustainability, and the environment. Those three endeavors were just a few of the projects presented earlier this month at the Cal Future Forum. More>

Twelve employees completed Emergency Medical Technician-Basic training to join the Lab’s Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT). MERT is part of the Lab’s Disaster Assistance Teams, designed to augment professional response to disasters. Go here for more information and to see who completed the training.

Excavation work for the IGB foundation is underway, with all foundation micropiles installed. Soil is sampled and staged in the Pit parking lot. About 2,100 cubic yards has been removed, with 400 more scheduled for June 10. All efforts are being made to minimize impacts to staff. Contact Joe Harkins (x7486) for questions. See map for details on current Facilities Division projects.

A new mathematical “shortcut” developed by Lab researchers is speeding up molecular absorption calculations by a factor of five, so simulations that used to take 10 to 15 hours to compute can now be done in around 2.5 hours. These algorithms will be incorporated in an upcoming release of the widely used NWChem computational chemistry software suite later this year. More>

In 2017, operators are hoping to produce the same number of collisions as in 2016, but over a shorter period, since the LHC started up a month later due to an extended year-end technical stop. Berkeley Lab researchers collaborate on ATLAS and ALICE, two among seven detector experiments at the LHC. More>

Phantom of the Universe, which explores the search for dark matter, was created and executive produced by Michael Barnett of the Physics Division. The FullDome Festival gave the film an honorable mention. More>